


i hope i don't murder me (i hope i don't burden you)

by transgirluma (gayapplewhite)



Category: Descendants (2015)
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, Swearing, Uhh please keep that abuse tag in mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-04-26
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:48:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayapplewhite/pseuds/transgirluma
Summary: “she was harsh on carlos, harsher than she had to be, to make him strong enough to fight his mother, to save himself, to get out the way she hadn't been able to until it was too late.”or; the tragedy of ivy de vil.





	i hope i don't murder me (i hope i don't burden you)

**Author's Note:**

> alternate title : i was so scared (i ~~thought~~ knew nobody could save me) but ao3 won't let me do strikethroughs in the title, so. here we are.
> 
> the “quick, look away, that's the {x} one” comes from rhllor's [“of cutthroat ilk”](http://archiveofourown.org/works/449729)
> 
> this is otherwise known as the fic where i get emotional about the de vil cousins. pls comment if you enjoy, it means a lot to me!

there were three of them, the de vil cousins, terrors each and all. people laughed (only when they were out of earshot. no one dared offend them, or the _cruel_ brood that they'd come from) that it was good their name was de vil, because everyone in that damned family was a devil.

there was ivy de vil, only daughter of cyrus de vil, and oldest of the cousins by two years. smart as a whip and knew it, too. she was fiercely protective of the other two, and wore her hair in pigtails, split off into black and white. it was rumored her daddy had bleached half her head when she was a baby, and it had stuck. course, no one knew for sure, and no one was gonna ask. when she turned thirteen, she beat a man to death for breaking diego's arm, and she took her pigtails out and let her hair hang straight. she wasn't a child anymore, and she knew it. when she walked in the streets, people got out of her way, whispering to each other, “quick, look away, that's the _smart_ one.”

diego de vil was the only son of cecil de vil, born two years after ivy to a mother that no one, even his father, could remember. he wailed sadly as he was born, and never quite stopped. once he got older, his wails turned to songs about loneliness and heartbreak and loss that no one really wanted to listen to for longer than a minute, for fear of catching that sadness that he'd got. he stood by carlos and ivy as much as he could, and he pretended as though he didn't care (though all who knew him knew he cared. how could he not, with a heart full of sadness like his), running his fingers through his icy bleached hair that turned black at the roots. rumor had it he was born with his hair that way, turned white early from all the sadness he'd soaked up in the womb. no one knew for sure, of course, and no one was going to ask, neither. when he was ten, he began playing a worn out guitar on street corners and singing, and when people passed, they whispered, “quick, look away, that's the _sad_ one.”

carlos de vil was born one year after diego to cruella de vil. he was not the first child that had been seen lurking around inside cruella's house, peeking out of the windows a ghost, but he was the only one who lasted. his mother first dragged him outside when he was seven, shoving him out of the door and leaving him locked outside of the house for hours, and that look of terror he had never really quite went away. he had curly white hair, bleached at the roots, and it was rumored that his mom did it, to remind her of what dyeing furs was like. she never saw him as anything more than a dog, or at least that's how the rumors went. no one wanted to know if those rumors were true. no one was brave enough to know, even if there might've been some brave enough to ask. and when carlos was sixteen, roaming the streets of the isle with mal and her gang, the almost palpable look of terror in his eyes hadn't quite left him, and when he passed them, people whispered to each other, “quick, look away, that's the _scared_ one.”

ivy knew what life was like, for carlos, for deigo, because how could she not? she'd lived with her father, worse than diego's, almost as bad as cruella. and she couldn't bear to see carlos, a mirror reflection of her when she was younger, not be strong enough to fight back. and so ivy did what she had to do.

 

//

 

she was harsh on carlos, harsher than she had to be, to make him strong enough to fight his mother, to save himself, to get out the way she hadn't been able to until it was too late. she knew she was a bitch (her father had told her as much since she'd been old enough to cry when he hit her or ask things of him), knew she was a bitch to carlos in particular, but ignored the curling, twisting fear in her heart that whispered to her whenever carlos looked sadly at her, or tears wavered in his eyes when she spoke to him that said that he would hate her if she kept on like she had. she knew carlos noticed she was harsher to him than diego, and she knew diego noticed it too. she hated herself for it, in the deep dark recesses of herself. ivy knew what she was doing was right, but she couldn't quite make herself believe it. and one day, when she'd sent carlos to do some menial task, diego confronted her.

“why are you so mean to carlos all the time?” he asked, standing up like he wasn't afraid of her, but his hands trembled. his eyes shifted back and forth nervously. he knew what she could do. he'd seen her beat a man to death and wipe the blood off of her painted-pretty blood-red nails. he was a little bit afraid of her. she wanted to be proud of that. she _wasn't_.

“why do you think?” she spat back. she was _harsh_ where diego was soft. his father had never been one to do anything to diego beyond yelling at him and telling him he was worthless when diego didn't do what he wanted. her father had done _worse_. she knew what cruella was capable of. she knew that carlos had to be stronger than she was. she wanted him to be able to fight cruella if he needed. to do what she hadn't been able to. to be what she could not.

“because you're a bitch,” he said, casually, trying to hide his still shaking hands. he was thirteen and bold, sharp and seemingly brave even though ivy could tell he was scared. “because you're just like his mother.”

ivy couldn't breathe, and a deep sense of unease and self-hatred filled her. her hands were shaking. she could feel the black of her own self-loathing curling up from her stomach, clenching her heart and encasing it in black. her lungs felt tight. “you little _asshole,_ ” she said, the word rolling bitterly off her tongue as she rolled up her sleeves almost mechanically. her breathing came in quick bursts, harsh and sharp. “you goddamn little asshole.” he looked at her arms, pockmarked with cigarette burn scars. diego's face blanched, and he fell silent. “why do you think i'm so goddamn harsh to carlos all the time?” she whispered, almost hissing the words at him. “because i know what it's like. i know what she does.” she wanted to yell, but somehow couldn't bring her voice above a hissing whisper. “i need him to be stronger than me. i need him to get away. if there comes a time when he has to fight, i need him to be able to. not like me. i was a coward, diego. i was a goddamned coward.” her body shook, and quiet tears burned down her face. “and i don't care if he hates me. it's not about me. it's about him being stronger than cruella. he can hate me for what i did to him. it doesn't matter.” it did matter. she hated the idea of carlos, _sweet_ carlos, hating her. she couldn't stand it. but she had accepted it. she turned away from diego, sobs shaking her thin frame. she waited for him to say anything, but instead, she felt a small figure wrap around her in a hug. she opened her eyes to see carlos's distinctive curly hair, and she ruffled it gently.

“how much of that did you hear?” she whispered, and carlos, always a silent one, just looked up at her carefully. she knew then. he may not have heard all of it, but he'd heard _enough_.

“i'm sorry,” she whispered, pressing a kiss softly to the top of his head, his curls tickling her mouth. she wanted to hold him just like that forever, keeping him safe as long as he was wrapped in her arms. she could keep the street rats and the older men and women with the wandering hands and the thieves and the boys who hurt others just for the thrill of it from him, but she couldn't save him from his mother. she hadn't been able to save herself from her father. how could she ever manage to save him?

“it's okay,” he whispered back, hugging her tightly as though if he let go, she'd leave. she held him tightly in response, two broken children keeping each other afloat.

 

//

 

ivy was nineteen when the man with the car from auradon came to take carlos away. she and diego watched, as he ran to the car, carrying his half-empty trash bag full of clothes and tossing it in the trunk. he didn't say good-bye, and ivy didn't blame him. why would he want to be around his family, his _disgusting_ , _devil_ family, for longer than he had to? and so carlos was gone, leaving diego and ivy as the heirs of the family that no one truly wanted the legacy of. diego kept carlos's cat away from cruella's rusting, broken knives, luring it to his home by baiting it with rotting bits of fish. and from then on the two were inseparable, diego careful to never leave the cat alone. wherever he want, the cat followed, meowing carefully at his ankles and purring whenever he held it. ivy watched this unfold from a distance. she'd never quite been an animal person, too afraid of herself and her legacy and what she might become to dare to become attached to any animal. diego didn't know what carlos had named the scrawny cat with fur falling out and what fur remained splattered across its body in black and white patches, so he called it little carlos. ivy noticed that after the cat arrived, he stopped asking and wondering after carlos as much as he had before. he wasn't like ivy, who kept her fierceness on the outside like armor, and her sadness and worry and self-loathing on the inside. he kept his sadness on the outside, wore it with pride. like being sad and loathing yourself was a badge of honor. villains weren't supposed to be _sad_. villains were supposed to _win_.

 

//

 

the coronation was broadcast on every channel the isle had. not that that was very many of them, of course. ivy and diego watched it together, at his father’s house. his father was gone, of course, ivy wouldn’t have dared go to diego’s if his father had been there for fear he’d rat her out to her father, who would drag her back. they watched as mal took the wand, and as she sobbed (crying was a sign of weakness. and suddenly, the most powerful girl on the isle was weaker than any other) and accepted that maybe she could be good. they smiled as carlos clung tightly to jay’s hand as they accepted good together, after a reassurance that their parents couldn’t reach them here (she’d always known jay was good for carlos. he had been close to carlos for years, closer than others. close enough to make some wonder, though ivy had never asked) they chose good together, and tears began to stream down ivy’s face as carlos said that he chose good. she had been so harsh on him to keep him alive, to make him him strong enough to save them. and ivy was smart enough to know that you could only truly save one person, and as she watched the static-filled television and saw carlos’s genuine grin (she thought this was the first time she’d ever seen him truly smile. she’d seen his smirks before, his careful, fabricated grin meant only to placate, his crooked half-smile that was directed at jay only when no one else was looking, but never this), ivy was glad that the one person carlos had chosen to save was himself.


End file.
